


Put Together and Pretty

by AdamantSteve



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-29
Updated: 2013-07-29
Packaged: 2017-12-21 18:40:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/903555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdamantSteve/pseuds/AdamantSteve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lola from her first sale to the present day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Put Together and Pretty

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Dunicha and Lancinate for their betaing/encouragement. They both gave me very helpful constructive criticism on this, most of which I elected to ignore. This is all told in a 2nd person POV and is meant to tell the story of Lola from manufacture/first sale through to present day. I don't know how successful it is, so please keep in mind this was something of an experiment.
> 
> The 'boy' is Phil Coulson and the 'man' in the last paragraph is Clint Barton. I didn't want to use names cause it's meant to be from the car's perspective? Yeah, I don't know.

1962

A man with gloves on drives you neatly into place on the showroom floor, full of bright pinprick lights. Your bright red cherry paint and chrome details glint gaily under the lights and the careful touches people give you, running hands over your curves and twisting your rear-view mirror this way and that. "She's a real beaut," they say. "A modern classic." Women check their makeup in your reflective planes, just as put together and pretty as you are.

 

A man and a woman hold hands over your console. "We'll take it," the man says, and the woman's dainty fingers run over your dashboard while papers are signed on your hood.

 

1972

Bags of shopping fill your passenger seat, and the woman smokes cigarettes as she drives home alone. Sometimes a boy revs your engine and toots your horn, but he's careful with you, reverent. Sometimes the woman comes into the garage and sits silently in the passenger seat, looking at the space the man used to occupy before taking a deep breath and leaving.

 

1982

The boy drives you further than you've ever gone before, halfway across the country with another boy beside him. You stop at roadside diners and motels, pulling off the road in the dark where they kiss like it's a secret. They talk about the future til they can't talk anymore, and the boy turns up the radio and hits the gas.

 

1992

The woman doesn't drive you much now. The boy comes home a man, and picks at the dull rusting peel of your chrome, the spaces where some of your letters have been lost. He says he's going to fix you up some day, but he doesn't have time. He's too busy now. He wears a uniform that makes the woman teary and proud.

 

2002

The garage is cleared out around you, boxed up and taken away, til the only thing left is you and the boy. He takes you someplace closer to the city with pictures on the walls of what you used to look like. He breaks you down bit by bit, and it takes a long time, cutting out all the bad. But he builds you up again, and he talks to you. Rolling around a new part in his hand, he tells you just how beautiful you're gonna look, cause there's finally someone he wants to show you off to.

 

2012

The other man never usually drives you, cause the boy doesn't like it, but he takes you someplace away from the city and helps the boy into your passenger seat. He's pale and weak, and he looks older than he should. He still seems concerned that the man might damage you, fingers twitching whenever you turn a corner or overtake someone. The man holds his hand across the console and tells him to stop worrying.

 

When you get home, the man opens the passenger door and helps the boy out, urging him away from the garage. He stops though, to check you over, even if it hurts him to bend down to get a good look at you. The man laughs and drags him away slowly, and later on grumbles something about how the boy'll always love you more than him as he carefully rubs you with wax.

 

The boy leans on the doorframe and smiles. “No, I won’t,” he promises.

  
  



End file.
